*****
A deep emotion had taken possession of my mind. Urania's last words had pierced my very marrow like an icy chill. "Never any end—never! never," I repeated; I could think or speak of nothing else. But still the magnificence of the spectacle appealed to my eyes, and my feeling of annihilation gave place to enthusiasm.
"Astronomy," I cried, "is everything! To know these things, to live in the infinite,—oh, Urania! what are other human ideas compared with science? Shadows, phantoms!"
"Oh! you will wake up again upon the Earth," she said; "you will admire, and rightly too, the wisdom of your masters. But understand this,—the astronomy of your schools and observatories, mathematical astronomy, the beautiful science as known to Newton, Laplace, Le Verrier, is not yet definite, actual knowledge.
"That, O my son! is not the end which I have pursued since the days of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Look at the thousands of suns analogous to that which gives life to the earth, which like it are sources of light, motion, activity, and splendor! Ah! that is the object of the science to come,—the study of universal and eternal life. Until now, no one has ever entered the temple. Figures are not an end, but a means; they do not represent Nature's structure, onlythe methods, the scaffoldings. You are to see the dawn of a new day. Mathematical astronomy will yield her place to physical astronomy, to the true study of Nature.
"Yes," she continued, "astronomers who calculate the movements of the stars in their daily passage of the meridian, those who foretell eclipses, celestial phenomena, periodical comets, who observe the exact positions of the stars and planets on the different degrees of the celestial sphere so carefully; those who discover comets, planets, satellites, and variable stars; those who investigate and determine the disturbance caused the Earth's motion by attraction from the Moon and planets; those who consecrate their night-watches to the discovery of the fundamental elements of the world's system,—are all of them calculators and observers, precursors of the new astronomy. These are immense labors, studies worthy of admiration, and important works which bring to light the highest faculties of the human mind. But it is the army of the past; mathematicians and geometricians. Henceforth, the hearts of savants will throb for a still nobler conquest. All these great minds never really left the Earth while studying theskies. Astronomy's aim is not to show us the apparent position of shining specks, nor to weigh stones moving through space, nor to foretell eclipses, or the phases of the Moon or tides. All this is fine, but it is not enough.
"If life did not exist upon the earth, that planet would be absolutely devoid of interest for any mind whatsoever; and the same remark is applicable to all the worlds which gravitate around the thousands of millions of suns in the wide stretches of immensity. Life is the object of the whole creation. If there were neither life nor thought, it would all be null and void.
"You are destined to witness an entire transformation in science. Matter will give place to mind."
"Life universal!" I asked: "Are all the planets of our solar system inhabited? Are the myriads of worlds which people the infinite lived upon? Do those forms of human life resemble ours? Shall we ever know them?"
"The epoch of your life upon the earth, even the duration of terrestrial humanity, is but a moment in eternity."
I did not understand this answer to my questions.
"There is no reason why all the worlds should be inhabitednow," she went on. "The present period is of no more importance than those which preceded or will follow it.
"The length of the Earth's existence will be longer—much longer, perhaps ten times longer—than that of its vital human period. Out of a dozen worlds selected by chance from immensity, we could, for example, find hardly one inhabited by a really intelligent race. Some have been already, others will be in the future; these are in preparation, those have run through all their phases: here cradles, there graves. And then too an infinite variety in the forces of Nature and their manifestations is revealed; earthly life being in no way the type of extra-terrestrial existence. Beings can think, live, in wholly different organizations from those with which you are familiar on your own planet. Inhabitants of the other worlds have neither your form nor senses; they are otherwise.
"The day will come, and very soon, since you are called to see it, when the studyof the conditions of life in the various provinces of the universe will be astronomy's essential aim and chief charm. Soon, instead of being concerned simply about the distance, the motion, and the material facts of your neighboring planets, astronomers will discover their physical constitution,—for example, their geographical appearance, their climatology, their meteorology,—will solve the mystery of their vital organizations, and will discuss their inhabitants. They will find that Mars and Venus are actually peopled by thinking beings; that Jupiter is still in its primary period of organic preparation; that Saturn looks down upon us under quite different conditions from those which were instrumental in the establishment of terrestrial life, and without passing through a state analogous to that of Earth, will be inhabited by beings incompatible with earthly organisms. New methods will tell about the physical and chemical constitutions of the stars and the nature of their atmospheres. Perfected instruments will permit the discovery of direct proofs of existence in these planetary humanities and the idea of putting one's self in communication with them. This is the scientifictransformation which will mark the close of the nineteenth century and inaugurate the twentieth."
I listened with delight to these words of the celestial Muse, which shed an entirely different light upon the future of astronomy and filled me with renewed ardor. Before my eyes was a panorama of innumerable worlds moving inspace, and I understood that the true object of science is to teach us about those far distant universes and allow us to live in those wide horizons. The beautiful goddess resumed:
"Astronomy's mission will be still higher. After making you know and feel that the Earth is but a city in the celestial country, and mana citizen of heaven, she will go still farther. Disclosing the plan on which the physical universe is constructed, she will show that the moral universe is constructed on the very same basis, that the two worlds form but one world, and that mind governs matter. What she will have done for space she will do for time. After realizing the boundlessness of space, and recognizing that the same laws govern all places simultaneously and make the vast universe one grand unit, you will learn that the centuries of the past and of the future are linked with the present, and that thinking monads will live forever through successive and progressive changes. You will learn that minds exist incomparably superior to the greatest minds of earthly humanity, and that all things advance toward supreme perfection. You will learn too that the material form is but an appearance, and that the real being consists of an imponderable, intangible, and invisible form.
"Astronomy will then be eminently and above all else the directress of philosophy. Those who reason without astronomical knowledge will never reach the truth. Those whofollow her beacon faithfully will gradually rise to the solutions of the greatest problems.
"Astronomical philosophy will be the religion of lofty minds.
"You will see this double transformation in science," she added, "when you leave the terrestrial globe; the astronomical knowledge which you already so justly prize will be entirely remodelled in form as well as spirit.
"But this is not all. The renewal of an old science will be of little use to mankind in general if these sublime truths which develop the mind, enlighten the soul, and free it from vulgar common-place should be kept shut up within the narrow limits of professional astronomers. This time too will pass away. We must begin anew. The torch must be taken in hand, and its glory increased by carrying it into the busy streets and public squares. Every one is called to receive the light, every one is thirsting for it,—especially the humble, those on whom fortune frowns, for these are the persons who think most; these are eager for knowledge, while the contented ones of the century do not suspect their own ignorance, and are almost proud of staying in it. Yes, the light of astronomy must be diffusedthroughout the world; it must filter through the strata of humanity to the popular masses, enlighten their consciences, elevate their hearts. That will be its most beautiful and its grandest, greatest mission!"
THUSspoke my celestial guide. Her face was glorious as the day, her eyes shone with a starry lustre, her voice was like divine music. I looked at the worlds about us revolving in space, and felt that a mighty harmony controlled the course of Nature.
"Now let us return to the Earth," she said, pointing to the spot where our terrestrial Sun had disappeared. "But look again. You understand now that space is infinite; you will soon comprehend that time is eternal."
We crossed other constellations and came back toward the solar system. I saw the Sun reappear, looking like a little star.
"For an instant," said she, "I am going to give you, if not divine, at least angelic sight. Your soul shall feel the ethereal vibrations which constitute light itself, and shall know that the history of each world is eternal with God. To see is to know: behold!"
Just as a microscope shows us an ant as large as an elephant, and penetrates the infinitely small, making the invisible visible, so at the Muse's command my sight suddenly acquired an unknown power of perception, and distinguished the Earth in space, very near the Sun, which was in eclipse, and from invisible it became visible.
I recognized it; and as I watched, its disk grew larger, looking like the Moon a few days before the full. After a while I could distinguish the principal geographical aspects in the growing disk,—the snowy patch at the North Pole, the outlines of Europe and Asia, the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean. The more steadily I fixed my gaze, the better I could see. Details became more and more perceptible, asif I were gradually changing the lenses of a microscope. I recognized the geographical form of France; but our beautiful country appeared to be entirely green,—from the Rhine to the Ocean, from the Channel to the Mediterranean, as if it were covered with one immense forest. I succeeded, however, better and better in distinguishing the slightest details, for the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Loire, were easily found.
"Pay great attention," murmured my companion.
As she said this, she placed the tips of her slender fingers lightly on my brow, as though she had wished to magnetize my brain and endow my perceptive faculties with still greater power. Then I looked again more intently at the vision, and saw before my eyes Gaul in the time of Julius Cæsar. It was during the war of independence aroused by the patriotism of Vercingetorix.
"We are at such a distance from the Earth," said Urania, "that light requires all the time that separates us from Julius Cæsar to reach here. Only the rays of light that left the Earth at that time come to us; and yet light travelsat the rate of three hundred thousand kilometres a second. It is fast, very fast, but it is not instantaneous. Astronomers on the Earth, who are observing stars situated as far from them as we are now, do not see them as they really are, but as they were when the rays of light which they see to-day left them; that is to say, as they were more than eighteen centuries ago.
"One never sees the stars from the Earth, nor from any point in space, as they are, but as they have been," she continued; "the farther away from them one is, the more behind he is in their history.
"You observe most carefully through the telescope stars which no longer exist. Many of the stars visible to the naked eye are no longer in existence. Many of the nebulæ whose substance you analyze through the spectroscope have becomesuns. Many of your most beautiful red stars are extinct and dead; you would not detect them if you should go to them.
"The light shed from all the suns which people immensity, the light reflected into space from all the worlds irradiated by these suns, carries away through the boundless skies photographs of all the centuries every day, every second. Looking at a star, you see it as it was at the time the impression that you receive left it,—just as when you hear a clock strike, you receive the sound after it has left it, and as long after as you are far from it.
"The result is, that the history of all these worlds actually travels through space, neverentirely disappearing; that all past events are present and indestructible in the bosom of the infinite.
"The universe will endure forever. The Earth will come to an end, and some day will be nothing but a tomb. But there will be new suns and new earths, new springs and new smiles, and life will always bloom afresh in the limitless and endless universe.
"I wanted to show you," said she, after a pause, "how eternal time is! You have felt the infinity of space, you have understood the grandeur of the universe. Now your celestial journey is over. We must go back to the earth and your own home again.
"For yourself," she added, "know that study is the one source of any intellectual value; be neither rich nor poor; keep yourself from all ambition as well as from all servitude; be independent,—independence is the rarest gift and the first condition of happiness."
Urania was still speaking in her gentle voice; but my brain was so confused by the commotion aroused in it by so many extraordinary scenes that I was seized by a fit of trembling. A shiver ran over me from head tofoot, which was probably the cause of my abrupt awakening in a state of great agitation. Alas! the delightful celestial journey had ended.
I looked about for Urania, but could not find her. A bright moonbeam shining through my bedroom window lightly touched the edge of a curtain and seemed vaguely to outline the aerial form of my heavenly guide; but it was only a moonbeam.
*****
When I went back to the observatory the next morning, my first impulse was to find some pretext for going to the director's study to see the charming Muse again who had rewarded me by such a dream....
The clock had disappeared!
In its place stood a white marble bust of the illustrious astronomer.
I looked through the other rooms, even the private apartments, under a thousand different excuses; but she was nowhere to be found.
I searched for days and weeks, but could neither find her nor learn what had become of her.
I had a friend and confidant, very near my own age, although appearing older, from hissprouting beard; he too was very fond of the ideal, and perhaps even more of a dreamer,—besides, he was the only person at the observatory with whom I was ever on intimate terms. He shared my joys and griefs. We had the same tastes, the same ideas, the same feelings. He understood my youthful admiration for the statue, the personality with which my imagination had invested her, and my unhappiness at having thus suddenly lost my dearest Urania just when I was most attached to her. He had more than once admired with me the effect of the light upon her celestial countenance, and smiled at my ecstasies like a big brother, even teasing me a little sharply about my affection for an idol, going so far as to call me "Camille Pygmalion." But at heart I knew that he too loved her.
This friend—who, alas! was to be torn from me a few years later, in the very flower of his youth, kind George Spero, exalted mind, noble heart, whose memory will be ever dear to me—was the director's private secretary; and his sincere affection for me was proved in this instance by an act of kindness as graceful as it was unexpected.
When I went home one day I saw with a half-incredulous bewilderment the famous clock standing on my chimney-piece there, just in front of me!
It was really she! How did she come there? What brought her there? Where did she come from?
I learned that the celebrated discoverer of Neptune had sent it to one of the principal clock-makers in Paris to be repaired; that the latter had received a most interesting antique astronomical clock from China and had offered it in exchange, which had been accepted; and that George Spero, to whom the transaction had been intrusted, had re-purchased Pradier's work as a gift for me. His parents were glad of an opportunity to please me, in remembrance of some lessons in mathematics which I had given George for his special examination.
What joy it was to see my Urania again! How happy I was to feast my eyes on her once more! That charming personification of the Muse of heaven has never left me since. In my studious hours the beautiful statue always stood before me, seeming to remind me of the goddess's conversation,—to tell me the destiniesof astronomy, to direct me in my youthful scientific aspirations. Since then more passionate emotions have beguiled me, captivated me, and troubled my senses; but I shall never forget the ideal sentiment with which the Muse of thestars had inspired me, the celestial journey on which she bore me away, the unexpected panoramas she unrolled before my eyes, the truths she revealed to me as to the extent of the universe, nor the happiness she gave me by definitively settling my mind on the calm contemplation of Nature and science as a career.
Part Second.
ANintense evening glow floated in the atmosphere like a wondrous golden radiance. From the heights of Passy the view extended over the whole of the great city, which at that time, more than ever before, was not a city, but a world. The Universal Exhibition of 1867 had lavished all the attractions and delights of the century on imperial Paris. The flowers of civilization were blooming in their most brilliant tints, wasting themselves away by the very ardor of their perfume,—fading, dying in the full fever of youth. The crowned heads of Europe had just heard a deafening trumpet-blast there, which was the last of the monarchy; science, arts, industry had sowed their newest creations broadcast, with an inexhaustible prodigality. It was a general delirium of men and things. Regiments were marching, with music at their heads; swift-rolling vehicles crossed each other from all directions; thousands of people were moving about in the dust on the avenues,quais, and boulevards: but the very dust, gilded by the rays of the setting sun, crowned the splendid city like an aureole. The tall buildings, towers, and steeples were ablaze with reflections from the fiery orb; tones from a distant orchestra, mingled with a confused murmur of voices and other sounds,—the brilliant, fit ending of a dazzling summer day,—poured into the soul an undefined feeling of contentment, happiness, and satisfaction. There was a kind of symbolical summing-up about it of the evidences of the vitality of a great people in the zenith of its life and fortune.
From the heights of Passy, where we are, on a terrace in a garden overhanging the careless current of the stream, as in the old days at Babylon, two persons, leaning on the stone balustrade, watch the noisy scene, looking down on the restless surface of the human sea, happier in their sweet solitude than all the atoms of that seething whirlpool; they do not belong to the every-day world, but soar above all that restless activity in the limpid atmosphere of their own joy. Their spirits feel, their hearts love; or to express the same fact more completely, their souls live.
In the maidenly beauty of her eighteenth spring, the young girl's glance wanders dreamily over the apotheosis of the setting sun. Happy to be alive, happier still to love, she gives no thought to the thousands of people moving about at her feet; she looks with unseeing eyes at the sun's ardent disk sinking below the purple western clouds; she breathes the perfumed air from garlands of roses in the garden, and feels through her whole being the peace of perfect happiness, singing a hymn ofunutterable love in her heart. The blond hair waves about her brow like a misty aureole, and falls in thick tresses over her slender form; her blue eyes, fringed by long dark lashes, are like a reflection of the azure sky; her neck and arms give glimpses of the snowy whiteness of herskin; her cheeks, her ears, are softly colored; her whole person recalls somewhat the dainty marchionesses whom the painters of the eighteenth century loved to depict, who were born to an unknown life which they were not long destined to enjoy. She is standing. Her companion, whose arm a moment ago encircled her waist as they were looking at the picture of Paris and listening to the strains of melody flooding the air from the Imperial Guard, had seated himself by her side. His eyes had forgotten Paris and the setting sun; now they see nothing but the beautiful girl. He looks at her unconsciously with a strange, fixed gaze, as though he saw her now for the first time, and could not keep his eyes from her exquisite profile, enveloping her in a long look like a magnetic caress.
The young student was absorbed in his contemplation.Was he still a student at twenty-five? Is one ever anything more? And our own master then, M. de Chevreul, does he not call himself now, in his one hundred and third year, the senior of the students of France? George Spero had finished his lyceum studies at a very early age; but they teach nothing, unless it be how to work, and he continued to investigate the great problems of natural science with indefatigable ardor. Astronomy especially had at first attracted his interest. I had known him (as the reader of the first part of this book may remember) at the Paris Observatory, which he had entered at the age of sixteen, and where he had somewhat distinguished himself by a rather strange peculiarity,—that of having no ambition and no desire whatever for advancement.
At the age of sixteen, as at twenty-five, he believed himself to be on the verge of the grave,—judging, perhaps, that life indeed passes quickly, and that it is useless to wish for anything beyond the happiness of studying and knowing. He was not very talkative, although at heart his disposition was that of a playful child. His small, well-shaped mouth seemed to smileif one carefully examined its corners; otherwise it looked somewhat pensive, and as though made for silence. His eyes, whose undecided color reminded one of the bluish-green on the sea's horizon, changed with the light and in accordance with his moods; they were usually gentle, but on occasion would flash like lightning, or grow as cold as steel; their glance was deep, sometimes unfathomable, even strange and enigmatical. His ear was small, gracefully curved, the lobe well detached and a little raised,—which to analysts is an indication of refinement. The brow was broad, although his head was rather small, but seemed larger from his glistening, thickly waving hair; his beard was brown, like his hair, and slightly curled. Of medium height, his whole effect was elegant, with a natural ease; he dressed carefully, but without pretence or affectation.
My friends and I never had any special companionship with him. Holidays and leisure hours he never spent with us. Always occupied with his books, he seemed to have given himself up without reserve to hunting for the philosopher's stone, the quadrature of the circle, or perpetual motion. I never knew him to have afriend, unless it were myself; and yet I am not sure that he gave me all his confidences,—though, for that matter, perhaps there was no special event in his life except the one of which I now make myself the historian, and which I knew all about as an eye-witness if not as confidant.
The problem of the soul was the perpetual torment of his thought. Sometimes he was so absorbed in his search for the unknown, with such intense cerebral action, that he felt a sensation of tingling in his head which seemed to exhaust all his thinking faculties. This was especially the case when, after having analyzed the conditions of immortality for a long time, he saw real ephemeral life suddenly disappear, and endless immortality open before his mental being. In the face of this aspect of the soul in full eternity he longedto know. The sight of his own body, pale and stiff, wrapped in grave-clothes and lying in its coffin, left deserted in its last mournful resting-place at the bottom of a narrow grave under the grass where the cricket chirps, did not appall his thought so much as the uncertainty about the future. "What will become of me; what willbecome of us?" he repeated, like the constant clashing of a fixed idea in his brain. "If we die utterly, what an absurd farce life is, with its hopes and struggles. If we are immortal, what do we do with ourselves through endless eternity? Where shall I be a hundred years from now? Where will all the present dwellers of the earth be? To die, for ever and ever; to have existed but for a moment! What a mockery! Would it not be better a hundred times over never to have been born? But if it be our fate to live eternally and never to be able to change anything of the fatality that carries us along,—having endless eternity always before us,—how can we bear the burden of such a destiny? Is that the doom awaiting us? If we should tire of existence, we should be forbidden to fly from it; it would be impossible to end it. In this conception there is far more implacable cruelty than in that of an ephemeral life vanishing away like an insect's flight in the fresh evening breeze. Why then were we born? To suffer uncertainty; to find after examination not a single one of our hopes left; to live like idiots if we do not think, like fools if we do? And yet they tell us of a 'good God!'There are religions, priests, rabbis, bonzes. Why, mankind is but a race of dupes and duped! Religion is the same as patriotism, and the priest is as good as the soldier. Men of all nations arm themselves to the teeth that they may kill one another like simpletons! Ah! it is the wisest thing they could do; the best return they could make to Nature for the foolish gift she bestowed in causing them to be born."
I tried to lessen his pain and anxiety, having a certain philosophy of my own which was relatively satisfactory to me. "The fear of death seems absolutely chimerical," said I. "There are but two hypotheses to make about it: every night it may be that we shall not wake again the next morning; and yet, when we think of it, this idea does not prevent our going to sleep. Now, then, first, either all being ended with life, we do not wake again anywhere,—and in that case it is a sleep thathas not ended, but which will endure throughout eternity, so that we shall never know anything about it,—or else, secondly, the soul outliving the body, we shall wake up somewhere else and continue our activity. In that case there is nothing to fear in the awakening,—it should rather attract us. There is a reason for all things in Nature; and every creature, the meanest as well as the noblest, finds his happiness in the exercise of his faculties."
This reasoning seemed to calm him; but the restlessness of doubt soon returned, pricking like thorns. Sometimes he would wander off alone through the spacious cemeteries of Paris, seeking out the most deserted alleys between the graves, listening to the wind among the trees, and the rustle of the leaves in the paths. Sometimes he went away into the woods in the suburbs of the great city, and would walk about for hours at a time muttering to himself. At other times he would spend a whole day in his study in the Place du Panthéon, which he used as study, work and reception room at the same time; and there, until far into the night, he would dissect a brain brought back from theclinic, studying the small slices of gray substance through his microscope.
The uncertainty of the sciences called positive, the sudden halt to his mind in the solution of these problems, threw him into fits of deepest despair; and I have found him many times in a state of utter prostration, his eyes set and shining, his hands burning with fever, his pulse agitated and intermittent. In one of these crises I was obliged to leave him for a few hours, and almost feared I should not find him alive on my return, at about five o'clock in the morning. He had near him a glass of cyanide of potassium, which he tried to hide as I came in; but recovering his calmness almost at once, he said, with great serenity and a slight smile, "What is the good? If we are immortal, it would be of no use, and I wanted to know about it sooner." That day he acknowledged he believed that he had been lifted painfully by his hair to the ceiling, and allowed to drop with all his weight upon the floor.
Public indifference with regard to the great problem of human destiny,—a question which in his eyes exceeded all others in importance, since it treated of our continued existence ordestruction,—exasperated him to the last degree. All about him he saw people who were occupied solely by material interests, entirely absorbed by the foolish idea of "making money," for which they gave up all their years, their days, their hours, their minutes, disguised under various forms; and he found no free, independent mind living an intellectual life. It seemed to him that sentient beings could,should, while living the bodily life, since one cannot do otherwise, at least not remain the slaves of so coarse an organization, but devote the best moments to their intellectual life.
At the time this story begins, George Spero was already well known, and even famed, by the original scientific books which he had published, and also by several books of high literary merit, which had won praise for his name in all parts of the world.
Although he had not yet completed his twenty-fifth year, thousands of persons had read his books, which, however, were not written for the general public, but had been so successful as to be appreciated by the majority who desire to learn, as well as by the enlightened minority. He had been proclaimed master of anew school, and eminent critics, knowing neither his physical individuality nor his age, spoke of his "doctrines."
How did it happen that this philosopher of such rare ability, this stern student, should be at a young girl's feet at sunset on the terrace where we met them just now? The rest of the story will tell you.
THEIRfirst meeting had been a very strange one. The young naturalist was a passionate admirer of the beauties of Nature, and was always looking for grand effects. The year before, he had made a journey to Norway to visit the silent fiords, in which the sea was swallowed up; the mountains, whose snow-crowned summits lift their spotless brows far above the clouds; and to make a special study of the aurora borealis,—that most magnificent exhibition of our planet's life. I had accompanied him on the journey. The sunsets over the deep, calm fiords, the rise of the splendidorb on the mountains, charmed his poetic and artistic soul with an indescribable emotion. We remained there more than a month, going through the picturesque region of the Scandinavian Alps. Now, Norway was the home of that child of the North who was to exert so strong an influence over his unawakened heart. She was there, only a few steps away from him; and yet it was not until the very day we left that Chance, that god of the ancients, decided to bring them together.
The morning light was gilding the distant summits. The young Norwegian girl's father had brought her to one of the mountains much frequented by excursionists, like the Righi in Switzerland, to see the sunrise, which that day was of surpassing beauty. To better distinguish certain details of the landscape, Icléa had mounted a little hillock a few yards farther away, and was quite alone; when turning with her face from the sun to embrace the whole horizon, she saw her own image, her whole figure, not on the mountain nor the earth, but on the very sky itself. A luminous aureole framed her head and shoulders with a shining crown of glory, and a large aerial circle, faintlytinted with the colors of the rainbow, surrounded the mysterious apparition.
Astonished and touched by the singularity of the vision, and still under the influence of the gorgeous sunrise, she did not at first notice that another face, that of a man, was by the side of her own,—the motionless silhouette of a travellerin contemplation before her, recalling the statues of saints on their pedestals in churches. This masculine figure and her own were framed in by the same aerial circle. Suddenly she perceived the strange profile in the air, and thought herself the plaything of a fantastic vision; she started back in her amazement with a gesture of surprise, almost of fear. Her image in the air reproduced the same gesture, and she saw the traveller's wraith put his hand to his hat and take it off, as if he were bowing to the heavens, then lose the clearness of its outlines, and fade away at the same time as her own figure.
The transfiguration on Mount Tabor when the disciples of Jesus suddenly saw their Master's image on the sky, accompanied by those of Moses and Elias, could not have caused its witnesses any greater stupefaction than the innocent Norwegian girl felt before thisanthelion, whose theory is well known to all meteorologists.
This apparition fixed itself upon her mental retina like a marvellous dream. She called her father, who had remained a few steps away from the little mound; but when he reached her ithad all disappeared. She asked him to explain it; but he replied only by a doubt, almost a denial, of the truth of the phenomenon. The excellent man, formerly a field-officer, belonged to that category of distinguished sceptics who simply deny everything of which they are ignorant or which they cannot explain. It was all in vain that the lovely girl assured him that she had seen her reflection in the sky, and also that of a man whom she judged was young and good-looking; all in vain that she related the details of the apparition, and added that the figures were much larger than life-size, like enormous silhouettes,—he declared authoritatively and with considerable emphasis that it was what is called an optical illusion, produced by the imagination when one has not slept well, particularly in youth.
But on the evening of that day, as we were going on board the steamer, I noticed a young girl, with wind-tossed hair, who was looking at my friend in open astonishment. She had her father's arm, and was standing on the wharf as motionless as Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. I signed to my friend; but no sooner had he turned his head towards her than I saw herface crimson with a sudden flush: she at once turned away, and fixed her eyes on the paddle-wheel, which was just beginning to move. I do not know whether Spero noticed her confusion. As a fact, we had seen nothing of that morning's aerial phenomenon, at least not while the young girl was near us, and she had been hidden from us by a little clump of bushes; the magnificence of the sunrise had drawn us rather to the western side. However, he saluted Norway, which he regretted to leave, with the same gesture with which he had greeted the rising sun, and the pretty stranger had taken the bow for herself.
Two months later, the Comte de K—— gave a large reception in honor of the recent successes of his compatriot, Christine Nilsson. The young Norwegian girl and her father, who had come to Paris to pass a part of the winter, were among the guests, who had long known each other as fellow-countrymen, Norway and Sweden being sisters. We went there for the first time, our invitation being due to the appearance of Spero's latest book, which had already met with signal success. Icléa was a dreamy, thoughtful girl, well informed, thanks to the soundeducation given in Northern countries; she was eager to learn, and had read and re-read with curiosity the somewhat mystical book in which the new metaphysician, dissatisfied with Pascal's "Thoughts," had laid bare his soul's anxieties. Several months before, she had successfully passed thebrevet supérieurexamination; and having abandoned the study of medicine, which had at first attracted her, was beginning to look with some curiosity into the recent investigations of psychological physiology.
When M. George Spero was announced, she felt that an unknown friend, almost a confidant,had arrived. She started as if from an electric shock. He was not much of a society man. Timid, ill at ease in mixed assemblies, he did not care to dance, play, or converse, but preferred to stay apart in one corner of the room with some friends; quite indifferent to the waltzes and quadrilles, but more attentive to several masterpieces of modern music feelingly played. The entire evening passed without his being near her, although he had noticed her, andin all that brilliant ball had seen but her. Their eyes met many times. At last, about two o'clock in the morning, when the company was less formal, he ventured to approach her, without speaking, however. It was she who first spoke to him, to express a doubt about the conclusion of his last book.
Flattered, but still more surprised to learn that those metaphysical pages had had so young a reader, and a lady too, the author replied rather awkwardly that those investigations were somewhat uninteresting for a woman. She answered that women, and even young girls, were not exclusively absorbed in frivolity; that she knew several who occasionally worked, thought, endeavored, and studied. She spoke with a good deal of spirit, defending women against the contempt of certain scientists of the other sex, and maintained their intellectual equality. She had no trouble in winning a cause to which her listener was by no means hostile.
The new book—whose success had been immediate and brilliant, notwithstanding the gravity of its subject—had surrounded George Spero's name with an actual halo of fame, and the brilliant writer was warmly welcomed inevery drawing-room. The two young people had exchanged but a few words when they found themselves the general object of attention, and were forced to reply to different questions, which interrupted their interview. One of the most eminent critics of the day had recently devoted a long article to the new work, and the subject of the book became at once the topic of general conversation. Icléa took no part in it; but she felt—and women are not often mistaken—that the hero had noticed her, that her thought was already linked to his by an invisible thread, and that while he replied to the more or less common-place questions thrust upon him, his mind was not wholly on the conversation. This first little triumph was enough, she cared for no other; and moreover she had recognized in his profile both the mysterious silhouette in the aerial apparition and the young stranger on the steamer at Christiania.
In that first interview he had not hesitated to express his enthusiastic admiration for the marvellous scenery in Norway, and to tell her about his visit there. She was eager for a word, some sort of an allusion to the aerial phenomenon which had made so great an impression upon her,and could not understand his silence in regard to it. Not having observed theanthelionwhen she was reflected upon it, he had not been particularly surprised at an occurrence which he had already studied before and under better conditions,—from the car of a balloon; and having seen nothing specially noticeable, had nothing to say about it. The occurrence at the steamboat landing too had entirely passed from his memory; so that although the fair beauty of the young girl did not seem entirely unfamiliar to him, yet he had no recollection of having met her before. As for me, I had recognized her at once. He talked about the lakes, rivers, fiords, and mountains of Norway; learned from her that her mother had died very young from heart-disease, that her father preferred living in Paris to anywhere else, and that it was probable she should not visit her native land except at rare intervals for the future.
A remarkable identity of ideas and tastes, a ready and mutual sympathy, a reciprocal respect, soon made them friends. Brought up and educated with English ideas, she enjoyed that independence of mind and freedom of action which Frenchwomen never know until after marriage;she felt hampered by none of the social conventionalities which with us are supposed to protect innocence and virtue. Two friends of her own age had even come to Paris to finish their musical education. They were living together in the very heart of Babylon in perfect safety, never even suspecting the dangers by which Paris is said to be beset. The young girl received George Spero's visits as her father would have received them himself; and in a few weeks the congeniality in their tastes and dispositions had united them in the same studies, the same researches, often in the very same thoughts. Almost every afternoon he went, drawn by a secret attraction, from the Latin quarter along the borders of the Seine as far as the Trocadéro, and passed several hours with Icléa either in the library, on the garden-terrace, or walking in the wood.
The first impression aroused by the apparition on the sky had remained in Icléa's mind. She looked up to the young savant, if not as a god or hero, at least as a man far superior to his contemporaries. The perusal of his works strengthened this feeling and increased it; she felt more than admiration, she had an actualveneration for him. When she knew him personally, the great man did not descend from his pedestal. She found him so high, so excellent in his works, his inquiries, his studies, and at the same time so simple, so sincere, so good-natured, so indulgent to all, and (seizing any pretext for hearing him talked about), she was sometimes forced to listen to such unjust criticisms upon him from rivals, that she began to have an almost maternal feeling for him. Does the sentiment of protecting affection exist in every young girl's heart? Perhaps. But assuredly she loved him thus at first. I have already said that the basis of this thinker's character was somewhat melancholy,—that melancholy of the soul of which Pascal speaks, and which is like homesickness for heaven. In fact, he was ever seeking to solve the eternal question, Hamlet's "To be, or not to be?" Sometimes he would be sad, downcast. But by a singular contrast, when his unhappy thoughts had worn themselves out, so to speak, in vain research, and his exhausted brain had lost the power of further vibration, a kind of repose came to him,—he recovered his ordinary quiet; the circulation of his red blood stimulated his organic life; philosophydisappeared, leaving him like a simple child, amused at trifles; and having almost feminine tastes, delighting in flowers, perfumes, music, revery, he appeared sometimes astonishingly light-hearted.